Review of Semmelweis

by Alison Lewis

Semmelweis by Jens Bjørneboe. Translated from the Norwegian and with an introduction by Joe Martin. Los Angeles: Sun and Moon Press, 1998. Paperback; $10.95.

The play Semmelweis, an emotionally jarring tour de force from anarchist author Jens Bjørneboe (1920-1976), had its world premiere at the National Theatre in Oslo in 1969. Now, thirty years later, it is finally available for readers of English. It should be of great interest to human guinea pigs because it demonstrates how participants in medical research are often regarded as disposable, particularly if they are "second-class citizens" such as women or people of color. This chilling tale is based on the true story of Dr. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818-1865). The play shows the intelligent well-meaning individual pitted against the ignorant and inhumane forces of the faceless institution and small-minded peers. Semmelweis, an Austro-Hungarian physician, is today lauded as the father of modern antiseptic theory. During his lifetime, however, he was ridiculed, maligned, fired from his position, and driven to madness. The first to make the connection between the plague of child-bed fever, which killed countless women, and medical students' trips between the morgue and the maternity hospital, Semmelweis found himself to be a voice crying in the wilderness. Doctors and medical students did not want to believe that they themselves could be the carriers of disease. They therefore branded Semmelweis a heretic and created a martyr to truth. The truth was, of course, that the doctors' and students' unwashed hands were carrying germs and promoting infection in the healthy women they were assisting in childbirth. Thousands of European women died from the mysterious ailment known as "child-bed fever" in the last half of the 19th century. Semmelweis saw the truth, and he suffered the horror of not being able to make anyone else believe him or understand. Bjørnboe's penchant for radical critique of society and those in positions of power, such as doctors, finds a perfect vehicle in the story of Semmelweis. In his preface to the work, translator Joe Martin states: "As often is the case in Bjørneboe's work, disease is also a metaphor for the prevailing consciousness of an age. The 'doctors are the disease' here -- and so is the hierarchical form of society upon which they sit near the top rungs. Meanwhile anyone who pursues an inconvenient truth in such a society is paradoxically seen as 'sick.' That is, he is not normal because he is not part of the prevailing disease." It is not hard to imagine similar symptoms in our own time and place. Class and gender politics are evident in the play as well, as doctors seem unmoved by the deaths of the poor women who come to the lying-in hospitals. In some scenes, Semmelweis discovers that the prostitutes of Vienna and the porters cleaning the outhouses have a greater understanding of hygienic principles than the doctors do. But, the disinfectants found in the janitor's closet are deemed inappropriate tools for the gentleman professional. Our tragic hero Semmelweis and the unfortunate patients are undone by the physicians' refusal to simply wash their hands before delivering babies - or even to engage in the scientific experiment of determining if such an act could make a difference in hospital mortality rates. They repeatedly ignore the evidence that Semmelweis brings forth, knowing that to acknowledge it is to implicate themselves. Bjørneboe has written about human medical experiments in at least two other works: Ere the Cock Crows, about medical experiments conducted in Nazi death camps, and in the "severed head" passages in his novel Powderhouse.